Coping in children and adolescents with cancer

Children and adolescents with cancer not only have to cope with everyday stressors and developmental tasks, as do their healthy peers, but also with illness-related stressors. Thus, it can be assumed, that children and adolescents with cancer differ from healthy peers in coping. Stress reactions and adjustment have been investigated in recent studies. In contrast, coping styles have not often been in the focus of research. In this study, the coping of children and adolescents with cancer (n = 60, 8-13 years of age) was compared to the norm, measured by the German Coping Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (SVF-KJ; Hampel et al. 2001). The results indicated that the subjects with cancer used more positive and less negative coping strategies when confronted with school-related or social stressors. The results are discussed with respect to the experience with disease-related stress and the possibility of repressive coping.